Shares Of Banana Company Are Going Nuts (CQB)

Chiquita Brands was up 30% on Monday after the banana giant received a $13 per share joint buyout offer from Cutrale Group and Safra Group.

As of Friday's close, shares of Chiquita, which has a market cap of about $620 million, were down about 14% year-to-date.

Cutrale is a juice and agribusiness giant that accounts for more than one-third of sales in the $5 billion orange juice market, and Safra is a group of businesses controlled by Brazilian billionaire Joseph Safra.

In March of this year, Chiquita agreed to be acquired by Irish produce distributor Fyffes in deal expected to close before the end of this year.

In a letter sent to Chiquita's board, Cutrale and Safra said their offer is not subject to any financing transactions adding that:

"We are prepared to complete our due diligence and negotiate a definitive agreement with your cooperation expeditiously in light of your proposed transaction with Fyffes. Based on our review of the terms of your transaction agreement with Fyffes, we are confident that we can reach a definitive agreement with you on substantially similar terms. We are also confident that with your timely engagement we will be in a position to consummate a Transaction before the end of this year. We do not believe there are regulatory obstacles which would prevent us from closing a Transaction in this time frame."